Stuff You Missed in History Class

The comparison of the modern pandemic to the 1918 pandemic continues in part two. This time, the show covers ventilation, supply shortages, and vaccines. 

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Now that we’ve lived through a year of a global pandemic, our approach to looking at the 1918 flu pandemic had shifted. We’re revisiting the events of 1918 with new perspective, comparing then to now. 

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This is a revisit of our 2013 episode on the often avante-garde French designer Paul Poiret. He got rid of corsets, introduced the concept of lifestyle branding, and used draping rather that tailoring to create his dramatic designs.

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Holly and Tracy talk about what a jerk Cornelius Vanderbilt was, trivia about the Grand Central story, and Tracy’s first visit to Grand Central Terminal. Then they discuss the myriad levels of confusion possible regarding names in the story of Zoe and Theodora. 

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Over almost 30 years in 11th-century Constantinople, sometimes Zoë ruled alongside one of her husbands, sometimes she and Theodora ruled together, and in the end, Theodora ruled alone. All against a backdrop of distrust and intrigue and possibly murder.

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Grand Central's story starts with one of the wealthiest names in U.S. history, but it also is in many ways the story of the city itself since the 1800s, because Grand Central was such a pivotal element in the growth of Manhattan. 

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This 2014 episode covers the incident in 1959, in which nine students ventured into the Ural mountains for a ski hiking trip, and never returned. While much speculation has swirled for more than half a century, no one knows for certain what caused them to abandon their camp to die in the cold.

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Holly and Tracy talk about Holly's childhood perceptions of Isadora Duncan and how the famous dancer broke convention. They also talk about the peccadillos of Duncan's autobiography, and her relationship with sexuality.

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The comforts afforded by fame were forever clouded for Duncan by an ongoing series of tragedies, leading right up to the famous – and horrifying – way her life ended.

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Duncan, often called the mother of modern dance, had an unconventional upbringing, and a VERY unconventional life. Her early life was full of struggle but seemed overall quite happy.

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